


Love Forgives Much

by Daegaer



Category: Fix Bay'nets - George Manville Fenn, Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: 19th Century, Angels, Angst, Forgiveness, Infidelity, M/M, Victorian era
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-12-16
Updated: 2004-12-16
Packaged: 2018-11-19 07:39:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,144
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11308791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Daegaer/pseuds/Daegaer
Summary: Aziraphale meets someone he hasn't seen for a long time. Follows on fromthis.





	Love Forgives Much

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [](http://ithurtsmybrain.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://ithurtsmybrain.livejournal.com/)**ithurtsmybrain** , a _Good Omens/Fenndom_ crossover. Aziraphale/Bracy.
> 
> With heartfelt thanks to [](http://louiselux.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://louiselux.livejournal.com/)**louiselux** for the beta!

_Cairo, 1891_

Aziraphale looked around the dim recesses of the hotel bar approvingly. He had spent a pleasant day sight-seeing and poring over scraps of papyrus offered for sale by reputable and disreputable dealers, and was now in the mood for some quiet relaxation. After the blazing white light of the Egyptian sun outside the room was cool and dark. The ceiling fans sent delicious currents of air across his face as he looked up at them admiringly. He rather thought he approved of electricity, although he hadn't at first, thinking it was something Crowley'd thought up. However, when the demon had emerged from his lair (1), blinking in the harsh light of technological progress and immediately making his appearance ten years younger to compensate for the pallid colouration electricity imparted to his skin, Aziraphale had decided he was firmly in favour of the new invention. It made reading late at night so much easier on the eyes, for one thing (2).

Aziraphale sank into an extremely comfortable armchair with a sigh and smiled at the very nice young man who came over to take his order.

"A gin and tonic please, dear," he said, and then, feeling a little guilty added, "unless it offends you, of course, in which case I'll have, um, pomegranate juice."

The very nice young man smiled, showing teeth of what Aziraphale considered a really rather extravagantly gleaming whiteness and assured him that it was quite all right, he didn't mind bringing alcohol to guests as long as they didn't expect him to drink it. After a few more pleasantries, and some compliments on the fluent and classical nature of Aziraphale's Arabic, the angel sat peacefully sipping a perfectly lovely gin and tonic into which he miracled (after a quick look round to make sure no one was paying attention) some non-dysentery-inducing ice cubes.

He was halfway through his drink when he realised that the man sitting at the bar was vaguely familiar to him. He was sure he'd seen the fellow somewhere before, maybe in England. After a few minutes' thought and a few more sips, he had narrowed it down to a couple of choices. The man was either that young fellow with the cat that wanted to be mayor of London (3), or he was the nephew of one of the members of a discreet little club of which Aziraphale was rather fond. Seeing as the young man with the ambitious cat had been dead for - Aziraphale checked his watch - several centuries, he supposed that the fellow at the bar drinking Scotch like it was particularly thirst-quenching water must in fact be his acquaintance's nephew. _Blast_ , he thought. He'd been introduced to this young man and it would be awfully rude not to go up and say hello. On the other hand, he was rather sure he hadn't been seen, so perhaps he could just slip away and wouldn't have to listen to the fellow's woes. He had "woe" written all over him, which wasn't Aziraphale's current preferred reading choice (4). Selfishness and the demands of propriety warred within Aziraphale (5) until he felt he really should at least make himself known. Putting a good face on it, he picked up his drink and wandered over to the bar.

"Hello!" he said, struggling for the name. Sad blue eyes turned his way, full of the sorrows of the world. This was a serious young man, he seemed to remember, with a serious name. "Um . . . Ernest?"

"Edmund," the man said shortly, swallowed the last of the whisky in his glass and snapped his fingers in what Aziraphale felt was a rather abrupt manner. The very nice young man appeared as if by magic and poured another double measure.

"You're Paul Bracy's nephew, aren't you?" Aziraphale said, hoping that appearances did not deceive him, and the fellow was too drunk to remember who he was.

"Yes," Edmund said, and drank half his whisky before recommencing his other apparent hobby of staring disconsolately at the shining wood of the bar.

Aziraphale paused to reconsider his conversational tactics. An opening of "And how are you?" seemed rather tactless, as it very much looked like the only answer would be "Bloody awful, thank you very much."

"Have you been in Cairo long?" he asked.

"Long enough," Edmund said viciously, knocked back the rest of his drink and did his best to snap his fingers again.

Aziraphale winced, and politely called the nice young man back.

"Could you leave the bottle with us, dear? And I'll have another G&T, please." He poured Edmund a whisky and ignored the protests as he added some water from the little jug that had suddenly appeared on the bar. This was frightfully annoying. He was _supposed_ to minister to people, yes, but this was his _holiday_. _Damn and blast_ , he thought, and put on a professional smile. "What's wrong?"

As he expected there was no immediate answer, but Edmund was drinking with all the zeal of the newly hard done-by, and what's more, with the dedication of someone who knew that whatever the trouble was, he'd done it to himself.

"Goodness," Aziraphale said brightly, "it must be quite ten years since I've seen you. You decided not to join your uncle's club in the end, was that it?" (6)

"I've been living in the country," Edmund said, or at least that was what Aziraphale understood him to say after thinking about what the slurred syllables might mean.

Aziraphale took out his watch in the vain hope it might be dinnertime and he could escape. Finding he had time to smite, he sighed, and changed the whisky in Edmund's glass to whisky-flavoured ginger ale. The poor boy was doing untold damage to his liver.

"How's your friend?" Aziraphale tried, "the one you were telling me about the last time we met?"

Edmund made a sound like a sad, drunken puppy and lunged for the bottle.

 _Aha_ , thought Aziraphale, plucking it from his grasp. "Oh, dear," he said. "What have you been doing?"

"Nothing," Edmund said in a tone Aziraphale found depressingly familiar, the sulky, falsely innocent tones of many a man whose wife has suddenly asked what exactly he was up to in the pantry with the scullery-maid. Only from what he remembered, he doubted a scullery-maid was involved here. An under-footman, perhaps.

"How much nothing?" he asked, "And were you discovered not doing it?"

The slow collapse onto the bar in drunken sobs told him all he needed to know.

"Oh, for Heaven's sake!" Aziraphale snapped, "What is _wrong_ with you people? Why do you always insist on ruining your own happiness? Sober _up_ , man!"

Edmund twitched all over as the alcohol left his body, and gazed at Aziraphale in shock (7). " . . . Mr Fell?" he asked.

"That's right," Aziraphale said briskly. "Now, while I'm still in the mood to listen, you are sitting here drinking yourself into an early grave because . . .?"

The stubborn silence grew longer and more stubborn. Aziraphale smiled unblinkingly at Edmund until the fellow's eyes began to cross. It was a cheap trick, Aziraphale was the first to admit, but it worked so well for Crowley that he'd been using it himself for centuries.

"I didn't do anything wrong," Edmund said at last, in a defensive tone that implied he'd not only done a fair amount of wrong but had enjoyed doing it precisely because it _was_ wrong.

Aziraphale sighed, having heard those words far too often, and usually just after Crowley had been sniffing around. "Look," he said, "just tell me, all right?"

He gave a peculiarly encouraging smile, and Edmund started talking with a slightly stunned expression as if he couldn't quite believe he was incriminating himself to such an extent. Once the whole story, involving a sudden attack of curiosity, an attractive Egyptian servant and a horrified friend opening the door at precisely the wrong time had come out Aziraphale shook his head in disbelief. Why could no one ever tell him something _new?_ he thought.

"And then you had a fight and blamed your friend," he said.

Edmund looked at him suspiciously. "How did you --"

"That always happens. And then he stormed off and, human nature being what it is, is no doubt even now finding some nice young fellow so he can give you a taste of your own medicine."

Edmund began to cry, a lot more quietly than when he'd been drunk. Aziraphale took a deep breath. It was always the same, he was just getting into his stride pointing out in a good, righteous way where a person had gone wrong and they started to cry, heartbroken, and made him feel sorry for them.

"You were very selfish," he said gently, "and you hurt your friend. You won't do any good at all if you start getting angry at him now."

"But I didn't mean anything by it!" Edmund wailed, "It was just --"

Aziraphale felt his sympathy waning rapidly.

"Oh, _please_ ," he said. "If it was _meaningless_ you could have chosen anyone. If it's just something _meaningless_ you want, I have a good forty-five minutes free right now."

"What?" Edmund said, sounding panicked, "Um --"

"Quite," Aziraphale said acidly. " _Meaningless_ is reserved for people who are prettier and younger than someone like me, I take it? And, more to the point, than your friend. Who, I should imagine, is wondering whether this really is all his fault as you told him, and what he's done to deserve this, and whether it's ridiculous to want to forgive you."

"He'll never forgive me," Edmund said hopelessly.

"Maybe not, but he wants to. If he ever got up the courage to come all the way into the room, he could tell you that himself," Aziraphale said.

Edmund turned round with a jerk and stared in shame and hope at the younger man standing hesitantly in the doorway. Aziraphale stood up and patted him on the shoulder.

"If you'll take my advice," he said, "you won't grovel so much you start feeling resentful, but you will make it quite clear that you're sorry and that it won't happen again. And if you'll really take my advice, you'll make sure it _doesn't_ happen again. Best of luck."

He picked up his hat and strolled for the door. Edging politely past the younger man standing there, who didn't see him, Aziraphale paused to whisper in his ear.

"He really is sorry. Do you want to let your time together end so bitterly?"

He watched the man cross the room and sit down beside Edmund. Neither of them said much, but there was no shouting, and no throwing things. It was a start.

Aziraphale put on his hat and stepped out into the white light of the Egyptian summer.

 

* * * * *

 

(1) A set of rather opulent rooms at one of London's better hotels. The owners had been rather surprised to find the hidden stipulation in the purchase agreement, but they gamely accepted that the young man from the left upstairs bedroom at Mrs Tibbkins' Lodging House did in fact come with the site, and, once the hotel was built, moved him from the shed out back where they'd been storing him to one of their better suites the moment the first payment from his bank was delivered to them. 

(2) Unlike demons, angels can't automatically see in the dark. They have to put in at least a little effort, but as far as Aziraphale was concerned, it was just plain easier to light a candle _and_ curse the darkness.

(3) History stubbornly insists it was the other way around, but as usual, history is wrong. His Worship the Mayor liked London so much he rarely left it throughout the course of his nine lives, although eventually - like so many politicians - he fell afoul of scandal and had to go underground for a time.

(4) Aziraphale was deep in his Anglo-Irish-Playwrights-of-Brilliant-Comic-Wit-and-Dodgy-Social-Virtues phase at the time.

(5) In this sort of situation selfishness usually won, of course, but on this occasion Aziraphale was thwarted by the man turning round and catching his eye in a manner that made claiming Aziraphale hadn't seen him rather difficult.

(6) This was something that Edmund's uncle was actually rather relieved about, for while his nephew would no doubt have fitted in rather well, assuming he visited between the hours of eleven in the morning to six in the evening on weekdays, he probably wouldn't have approved much of the members who turned up after eight pm or on the weekends.

(7) The effect, for humans, of such a rapid sobering-up was rather like a hangover in reverse, with an unnerving complete absence of pain and dread. It was almost like a religious experience, but a lot less work, which is why Aziraphale preferred it to actually dishing out divine ecstasy.


End file.
